This is why Sandra is the best Skywatch member. Spoiler: i don't know how to do anything but huge images
It sure seemed like Sunstreaker had terrible PTSD flashbacks about what happened to the two of them as I think he spent an entire issue "dying" (I don't believe for a second that it will take) while thinking horrific thoughts about it. ETA: Found it! AHM 14
Yeah, not going to spoil you on what happens after this. Things: I think Sunstreaker does care about Hunter and relate to him, but also blames him for not mercy killing him and, despite his grand gestures of self-love, Sunstreaker HATES HIMSELF, so I don't think him relating to Hunter as a partial extension of himself necessarily manifests as good feelings towards Hunter.
I agree, Petra. I can't imagine a situation like that as anything but incredibly traumatic, and I can totally see harboring or even developing misdirected pain and anger towards anyone involved. And having negative feelings towards extensions of yourself makes total sense to me. And I am back at it again with the gleefully hueg images because this encounter from AHM 14 Spoiler: robo gore It hurts my heart. There is nothing you could do to Spike that would hurt like that because he doesn't have a fucking personality.
At least that lady has the goddamn ethical realization to throw up as soon as Sunstreaker starts talking to her. She's PROBABLY not going to be flirting with sociopathic scientist any time soon again.
Yeah, she doesn't seem so hot on all this. Good for her. I kinda suspect Sunstreaker would probably parse the vomiting in response to a plea for help as further commentary on him personally, though.
Spoiler: So The thing about dehumanization is it's self-reinforcing. We see this time and time again with how humans treat Cybertronians. people who are convinced that Cybertronians are 'just machines' and their minds and emotions are just programmed responses stretched over emptiness are never going to be convinced that's not true. Screaming for help? Just noise. Begging for death? Programming misfires. Sacrificing yourself to protect a friend? Resource allocation. We DO see people's minds changed by this, mind, but they're not the people who are hardline 'they're just machines' advocates, they're people who were already on the fence and who only believed Cybertronians were clever machines because they'd never interacted with one, really. But this goes both ways, and is part of why the Cybertronians can do so much damage themselves. Organics are 'just' organics. Smart animals, maybe. It takes Soundwave adjusting his empathy to get feedback from humans before he realizes they're genuinely people and sapient and emotional, and while in his defense he IMMEDIATELY flips to advocating for the protection of humans at that point, it's also something he'd never attempted to do before. He just assumed because he couldn't read humans when his empathy was 'tuned' for cybertronians, that they didn't have feelings. It's scary!
Yeah, and he's so vain that it must have been so humiliating. What ends up happening to Hunter later... I won't tell you if you haven't reached that. But Spoiler I wonder if part of Sunstreaker is glad because now Hunter knows what HE was going through. And I wonder if more of Sunstreaker hates himself for being glad, because he knows EXACTLY what Hunter went through.
Yeah, on top of all the pain and horror, here is a random person accidentally stomping directly on a huge personal vulnerability. That's the part that gets me the most. I have reached that part and. Oh man. That train of thought sounds entirely plausible. Even likely. Poor Sunstreaker. I have a sad now. That is why I love him. Because he makes me sad. That sounded less fucked up in my head, but eh. Also my phone thinks I'm trying to rant about sunscreen.
THE JERKIER AND SADDER THE ROBOT, THE BETTER. -Points to pile of Prowl, Whirl, Sunstreaker, Rotorstorm-
And that is why I love you all. Because... you're.. sad? Hmm. That thought turned out even worse than the last one. And now my phone is suggesting sunstroke.
Characterization thing that clicked! Brainstorm. He's really, really hungry for approval. Not necessarily just attention, even though he does love him some plain attention too. And he's got a lot of regular ol' vanity in the mix, and a lot of that vanity is pretty justified. But if you look at the things he does, so much of that boils down to... hm. Words are hard. I want to say he performs for people. So like, if you look at him doing his thing in the comic, he does loads of science, etc. on his own. But when he shows up on the page and bumps up against other people, so much of it is him nudging people towards saying that yes you're smart, yes you invent the best weapons, yes you have the coolest ideas. Maybe it's most obvious when he's doing his bouncy mating dance for Perceptor. But also the first thing he does in mtmte is try to get Rodimus to connect the dots between 'this is the smartest bot in the universe' and 'oh this must be Brainstorm.' He invents flashy, attention-grabbing weapons, he does the engineering work while hanging upside down from the ceiling so he can show off to Nautica, etc. The Dying Of The Light arc is a bit of an exception, because everything is an emergency, but outside of that, he's constantly angling for other people to give him attention and tell him he's cool. The big exception is when he does the Thing, and I think that part of why that is so O_O is because it's so very detached from his usual modus operandi. He isn't angling for attention and approval, he's keeping it very quiet and doing it even though he knows there would be STRONG disapproval if people knew what he was up to. Brainstorm being sneaky is... alarming. The challenge is usually just getting him to chill out and stop showing off. Plus in the aftermath, he's subdued and calmly saying these things are getting people upset at him, etc. Kind of like that he knows nobody is going to really give him kudos, so why bother being flashy? Aww, and that's when he finally gets Perceptor's approval, I just realized. Oh man, I'm kind of moved now :') But also even after that, as soon as things start settling out, he's back to trying to get affirmation from other people. One of the first things he does is try to make things up to Nautica, and he does that by making the silly, flashy wrench he made for her even sillier and flashier. And it's after that point in the series where he does the hanging from the ceiling thing. I don't know where I'm really going with this, but I'm so fascinated by the characters who balance some degree of actual for-real vanity, plus a vain public face, against a wobbly center that they try to prop up with external validation. It's why I love Rodimus so much, and it's got a lot of similarities to how I dig into Prowl and Starscream too. It's just so interesting, because Brainstorm makes such a performance of the vanity, it does a lot to mask that he spends so much of his time seeking approval from other people.
Also Brainstorm is an MTO who only got such good jobs and training BECAUSE he's so fucking smart. That might tie into his bouncy approval displays?
Funny thing, this ties in exactly to the story I'm working on that has me writing down thinky things about Brainstorm :3c ps, FUNCTIONISM AND BRAINSTORM. good combo or best combo
I mean my OC Lacuna is so flashy and vain because she's from an underprivileged devisen social class and showing off is the only way she knows to GET anything, so.
Anyone have time for a snarky Thundercracker moment? Spoiler: The Transformers (2009) #11 The context is that the Autobots are badly in need of air support because Vortex, who was less crippled by the Optimus Prime face sitting incident than one might imagine. Bumblebee gets him an idea, which is Thundercracker, who doesn't see why this is worth interrupting TV. Bumblebee tries a psychology pep talk! Dawww. :3 Also is it just me or does Bumblebee's armor in the lower right panel look sort of like a really bulky yellow bikini bottom? That is all.
oh my god Also awwwww, Thundercracker, he really isn't so good at ALONE. He might need it, and he might rather be alone than be a leader, but he got pulled into this war He wasn't that enthusiastic about because that's what Starscream and Skywarp were doing and he couldn't be split up from them. And now this. And also later developments. Awww, precious boy, you need people who will properly appreciate you!
